On my way home from rock climbing, Beebs and I stopped in at the Mid-East Food Centre to grab some food and groceries for the week. Mid-East Foods is the biggest Middle Eastern grocery store in Ottawa, and offers a huge range of Middle Eastern groceries, sweets, and freshly prepared foods such as meat pies, salads, and dips. This store is more Lebanese focused. Middle Eastern is a broad term, much like the term ‘Asian’, so if you are looking for Persian groceries for example, you likely won’t find everything you are looking for, and are better off going to a Persian store.

One of the things we picked up was majdouli cheese. Beebs has had majdouli many times before, and was so excited when she saw it. Having never tried it before myself, I picked some up to see what all the fuss was about.

Majdouli, a type of string cheese, is a salty table cheese where the curd strings are grouped together and braided into a loop. It is lightly spiced with black cumin, and is heaps of fun to eat! The strings are formed by the way it is pulled during processing, and the cheese is rubbery in texture

I found the cheese a little too salty when we bought it, so I rinsed it in water and then let it dry a bit to keep that rubbery texture. The black cumin (also called black caraway, or Nigella seeds) in the cheese produces a nice fragrance, and is not too overpowering.

We cut a small amount of the cheese into a bowl, and set it out on the table for people to eat it plain or with toasted pita bread.

I have tried this cheese before, and it is sooooooo fun to eat. It is like a healthier version of twizzlers pull and peel. I personally love the rubber texture of the cheese, except you are right, it can be a little too salty. When buying it fresh it is preserved in salted water i believe, just like fresh feta. Yum